How Pistons vs. Magic turned into one of the ugliest playoff matchups you’ll ever see

This Eastern Conference first-round series between the Orlando Magic and Detroit Pistons has given us some of the ugliest basketball you could imagine in this day and age and, honestly, it’s been kind of beautiful. This is basically Hagler-Hearns circa 1985 with a ball bouncing around in the middle of the ring. Two teams that can’t make a shot to save their playoff life are somehow giving us a show for the ages.

After a 94-88 win for the Magic in Game 4 on Monday, the scorecard currently reads three rounds for Orlando, one round for Detroit. It’s possible that the knockout blow was actually already delivered by a guy at least half the people watching probably had no idea was even an NBA player.

His name is Jamal Cain. He has played in 121 career NBA games and now four playoff games. He has been a two-way player (meaning he spent part of his time in the G-League) for the Miami Heat, New Orleans Pelicans and now the Magic, for whom he played 40 games this season. And on Monday night, he eviscerated Detroit’s Jalen Duren with a tomahawk dunk that jelly-legged the Detroit All-Star straight to the canvas.

Listen, there are a lot of ho-hum dunks these days that get played up way more than they deserve on social media. That is not one of them. That is one of the nastiest, most breathtaking hammer jobs you will ever see against a legit contest in an NBA playoff game.

Somehow, the Pistons got back up after this blow and kept fighting, but they had to have been woozy as hell in doing so. I’d be surprised if Duren even remembers the last eight and a half minutes of the game. It’s just as well. He would probably like to forget not just this game, but the entirety of what has been a nightmare series for him and his 60-win Pistons, who are on the brink of becoming just the eighth No. 1 seed in history to lose a playoff series to a No. 8 seed.

Stylistically, we knew this series was going to be a battle of defensive will. But even for two teams that can’t shoot a lick, this has been some kind of disgusting offensive display. There have been 130 turnovers across four games, through which the Pistons are averaging 98 points, down from 117.8 during the regular season. That is the largest scoring decline by a No. 1 seed through its first four playoff games in NBA history.

Duren, who scored 19.8 PPG this season, isn’t even averaging double digits in this series. Cade Cunningham had eight turnovers on Monday and is shooting 28% from 3. Tobias Harris, the team’s second-leading series scorer, is at 14%. Pistons as a whole are under 30%. On Monday, they shot 38% overall and 20% from 3.

Improbably, the Magic were even worse at 32.6% as a team. That is the worst shooting percentage ever recorded in a playoff victory dating back to 1980. Paolo Banchero is rocking 37/26% shooting splits in this series. Over the last three games, he’s 17 for 52. He missed 14 of his 18 shots on Monday, combining with Jalen Suggs to go 1 for 15 from 3.

Suggs, meanwhile, is under the impression that he’s prime Klay Thompson. Dude is jacking up 10 3s a game in this series and bricking three out of every four. As a whole, Orlando’s shot selection is appalling. They basically don’t do anything on offense outside of a ball screen, usually for Banchero, that yields nothing and leads to 10 more seconds of someone dribbling (usually Banchero) into an errant jumper. Best-case scenario, somebody bulldozes their way into a foul, nearly 200 of which have been called in this series.

That number could easily be 300. These teams are assaulting each other. If you long for the bare-knuckle romance of NBA eras gone by, this is your series. There’s zero space. Every possession looks like a rugby scrum. It’s an analytical nightmare, but honestly, kind of a fan’s dream. At least the ones who grew up with Charles Oakley and Indiana’s Davis boys and wish kids today could understand the pure adrenaline rush of hearing someone scream “fight!” on the lunchtime playground as the whole school goes running.

What’s funny is that, coming into the postseason, everyone was hoping for a Detroit-Charlotte series because the Hornets were “fun.” Let me tell you, Charlotte would’ve been beaten within an inch of their basketball life by these Pistons. This is not a series for a LaMelo circus. This is big-boy ball.

As disappointing as they were all season, the Magic are one of the few teams — in some ways maybe the only team — that is big enough, strong enough, nasty enough, to stand in the middle of the ring with these Pistons and not just trade blows, but actually beat them at their own game. Which is exactly what they’ve done.

The Pistons are fully on the ropes now. Only 13 teams in history have gone down 3-1 in a playoff series and come back to win. If Detroit is going to do it, there’s only one way. Keep swinging. And hope that somehow the Magic stop swinging back.